a history

Gaston Victor, the third son of Victor and Mathilde Kahn, married Amy Dubber sometime between 1901 and 1903. We can find no trace of a marriage certificate.

The Dubbers originated in Bentley, Hampshire, where most of the following were born.

We now believe that our earliest Dubber ancestor was Andrew (born 1658) who married Mary. They had at least one child, Richard (born 1682) who married Jane Hooper. This couple also had at least one child, John (1707) who married Mary Lunn and produced six children: John (1738) Jane & Mary presumably twins (1740); Sarah (1745); Thomas (1748) and Richard (1754).

Our line continued through Thomas marrying Elizabeth Hillier and having three known children: John and Thomas (1776 – twins again) and Elizabeth (1782). Once again, Thomas is the continuation of our line. He married Anne Lock. They were a productive couple: Henry; Thomas (1805); John (1808); Ann (1809); George (1814); Richard (1817); James (1818); Mary Elizabeth (1821) and Lucy Ellen (1824).

George married Amy Clapshaw (1818-1894) at Alton in Hampshire on 21st April 1842. The couple had eight children, all born in Bentley: Eliza (1834); Henry (1837); George (1840); James (1844); John (1848); Frederick (1852); Ellen (1854) and Alice (1859).

James Dubber was a carman and labourer. He married Catherine Ascott in September 1869 in Middlesex. They had several children: James William (1870 – Roehampton); Edith Mary (1872 – Wandsworth); Amy Elizabeth (September 1874 – Pimlico); Alice Rose (1877 – Fulham) and Daisy Susan (1889 – Chelsea).

Catherine Dubber died in London October 1893. Her widower, James, died in Weymouth, Dorset, on 17th April 1915.

We know that James William Dubber married Mary Grace Trewin (abt. 1864 – Bodmin) and their children were: James Henry (abt. 1904); Reginald William (abt. 1907); Emily Mary (abt. 1908) and Edna (b. sometime after 1911 census). George A. Dubber is possibly a further child.

Amy Elizabeth Dubber was born at 18 Lillington Street, Pimlico, London on the 30th September 1874. In the 1901 census, she is shown as an upholsterer living as ‘head of family’ at 44 Ifiled Road, South Kensington, London. Soon after, she lived at 146 The Grove with Gaston Victor Kahn. There they had two children: Philip Brown Kahn (December 1903) and Gaston Bernard Kahn (November 1911).

Gaston Victor died in April 1911, a few months before the birth of his second son. Amy moved the family to Weymouth in the summer of 1914 and lived for many years at 4 Cassiobury Road, Weymouth. She married Frederick Charles Churchill, a window cleaner, in Weymouth during the first quarter of 1918. Frederick died in 1930.

Amy died at Weymouth on the 4th November 1960.

John Dubber (1848 – Bentley) moved to Sussex and married Harriet Cooper in 1868. They had children, all born in Uckfield: John (1872); Thomas William (1874); James (1877); Alice (1878); Albert Edward (1881). Information on subsequent generations is available but is a little vague and so subject to confirmation.

We would especially like to know what happened to Amy’s brothers and sisters. Brother James William is fairly well documented until 1911 in London. Sister Edith Mary married either William John Brown or William Lee in the last quarter of 1896, but there the trail goes cold. Alice Rose is recorded in the 1891 census with her parents in Chelsea, but nothing more is known. Daisy Susan is with her brother’s family in Bodmin for the 1911 census, but…